Hogarth, France and British Art

Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Individual Artists

Hogarth, France and British Art Details

From the Inside Flap Hogarth, France and British Art is a radical reappraisal of the art and achievement of William Hogarth (1697-1764). Read more About the Author Robin Smion is editor of The British Art Journal. He is the author of The Portrait of Britain in America. Read more

Reviews

US and international reviews favor this book:‘Richly informative’: Sanford Schwartz, New York Review of Books‘[Hogarth, France and British Art]… contains information that has a bearing on the whole period. The product of 40 years consideration, it is written with authority and originality, using many new images and ideas. The author couples his understanding of Hogarth with an extensive knowledge of French art, English literature, theatre and opera.’ Hugh Belsey, The Art Newspaper.Hogarth, France and British Art marshals the author’s considerable erudition to execute a series of forays and excurses into the relatively unmapped territory of Hogarth’s relations with the continental art world of his day, as well as with the old masters, contemporary sculpture, the London stage, Georgian music, and Augustan poetics. Alicia Weisberg-Roberts, CAA Reviews online‘Simon's book deserves to be read by everyone with an interest in British culture in the first half of the eighteenth century… [It] offers a surprisingly fresh iteration of the artist and his milieu. Simon's Hogarth is cosmopolitan in his understanding of European Old Masters and contemporary French art, sophisticated in his handling of oil paints, and a friend to "Tory wits" and Whig politicians alike. Hogarth emerges in Simon's account as an intellectually serious artist and a deeply gifted painter who almost single-handedly elevated British art to a Continental level of refinement. Simon meticulously traces networks of exchange between British and French artists in the first half of the eighteenth century, and he emphasizes the centrality of Huguenot refugees to the London art world. Douglas Fordham, Literature Compass, 5 (2008)And these are quoted on Amazon.co.uk: ‘[The book] has the air of brilliant performance about it, of the excitement of meticulous research and proved discovery [...] Simon has written with pace and passion the best book yet on Hogarth, encyclopaedic in its range of enquiry, utterly free of the jargon and nonsense of so much new art history.’ Brian Sewell, Evening Standard‘...startlingly original and well researched’, Lucy Davies, The Daily Telegraph‘...a rich, invigorating and highly individual addition to Hogarth scholarship’, Jenny Uglow, Daily Mail‘Robin Simon's brilliant tour de force of scholarship, encompassing an extraordinary range of material, not only provides a vivid pictture of all aspects of English cultural life in the 18th century, but succeeds in relating it to stimulating effect, and at every turn, connecting it to its French counterpart’, William Palin, Country Life

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